SHILLONG, Dec 3: Miffed with the repeated opposition allegations about scams and corruption in the Power department, Power Minister, James Sangma has rebutted some of the specific charges of overall billing and price manipulation.
Addressing a press conference here today, Sangma while clarifying about the allegations that the government favoured only one bidder during the tendering process for ADB project said that tendering process was done as per the ADB guidelines.
“All necessary approvals were taken from ADB for each and every step during the tendering process and the tenders were called through an online e-tendering portal through a transparent competitive bidding,” Sangma said.
On the issue of smart meters, he said that only one bidder qualified as per the technical criteria and the tendering process went on for six months and all necessary approvals were taken from ADB but despite that no other technically qualified bidder was found as per the guidelines.
Reacting to the allegations about cost enhancement of 18 per cent, Sangma said that the revised arrangement for ADB expands the scope of development and in the original scope of work out of 1.8 lakh total meters, only 75,112 were smart meters and the revised arrangement made all the 1.8 lakh dual mode hybrid smart meters.
According to Sangma, despite the NPP-led government achieving 100 per cent electrification for rural and urban households in the state, billing efficiency is only about 67.35 per cent and more than 75 per cent of the meters are outdated which warranted the installation of smart meters across the state.
As far as the allegations of non approval of funding agency for phase I and 2 of the DDUGJY, he said that phase I and 2 of the scheme has been approved by Rural Electrification Corporation (REC) which is the funding agency and no project under the scheme can receive funding if it is not approved by the REC.
On the allegations of enhanced project cost of the Ganol Hydroelectric project, he recalled that the project was initiated by the previous government but they failed to keep their promise of completing the project by February 2018.
Stating that the DPR fleshed out for the project in 2007 by the then government was faulty as per the 2017 CAG report, he added that the NPP-led government when it took over had two choices of either cancelling the project and wasting hundreds of crores of public money or infuse the project with required funds to make it viable and government chose the latter.
“There has been an increase in the height of the dam due to soil stability for the project and it warranted a higher fund allocation,” the Power Minister added.
Slamming the previous Congress Government for not bringing Saubhagya scheme to the state when all other states were taking advantage of the same, he said that the two companies which were awarded the project took part in the online e-tendering process as per the central government guidelines and companies which quoted the lowest bids were awarded the work after due approval from the Centre.
“All the prices quoted by the lowest bidders were verified by the central government agencies,” he said, while informing that under the scheme, 2146 villages have been electrified in a record time of a year-and-a-half in the state.